Arab circles inside Israel rejected the prospective government's endeavor - led by Benjamin Netanyahu - to establish a special unit in the General Security Service (the Shin Bet) to combat the escalating crime within the Arab community.
Last Wednesday evening, the leader of the Likud Party announced that he was able to form a government, which he is expected to present this week to the Knesset (Parliament) to gain confidence, amid growing concern among the Palestinians about it.
According to the Israeli news website Walla News, a coalition agreement between Netanyahu and the Otzma Yehudit party led by far-right Knesset member Itamar Ben Gvir provides for the establishment of a Shin Bet unit to assist the police in combating criminal offenses in the community. Arab inside Israel, in cooperation between the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of National Security, which Ben Gvir will lead.
And the "Shin Bet" - basically - is concerned with thwarting and preventing any illegal activity aimed at harming the security of the state, the system of government, or its institutions.
"Arab citizens are not a security or criminal target," said the head of the Higher Follow-up Committee for the Arab Masses in Israel, Muhammad Baraka, adding that they are a civil group whose needs must be taken care of like any other group.
Baraka accused the Israeli security apparatus of conspiring against the Arab community, saying that "the Shin Bet is already involved in organized crime as a supporter and sponsor, and this is according to the testimony of the police officers," pointing out that what is required is that "it removes its hand from the Arab community, and does not use criminal organizations as a tool to dismantle it."
As for Jaafar Farah, director of the Mossawa Center for Arab Rights in Israel (independent), he told Walla that the Shin Bet prevents the police from arresting criminals who work as "informants" for him.
He also accused the Israeli Ministry of Education of not combating the dropout of Arab students from the education system, which turns them into "soldiers in criminal organizations," he said.
While the Adalah human rights center (independent) considered - in a statement - that "the establishment of a separate security system from the Shin Bet with separate powers directed against different population groups on an ethnic basis is a deliberate creation of two separate legal systems and a return to the days of military rule," which the Palestinians lived inside Lands of 1948 from the Nakba to 1968.
The center warned that "if this policy is actually implemented," it will be another prominent pillar in a policy bearing the characteristics of apartheid that Israel promotes against the Palestinians.
The number of the Arab population of Palestinians in 1948 amounted to more than two million people, or 21% of the total population of Israel of 9 million and 593 thousand people, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (governmental) on September 20.
Since the beginning of 2022, 106 Arab citizens have been killed inside Israel, in light of the escalation of violence and crime, and accusations against the Israeli police of failing to pursue organized gangs and turning a blind eye to the proliferation of unlicensed weapons.